You Look Like you Could use Some Help
by The One Ring Alchemist
Summary: One helpless lady struggling against a storm is saved by a certain coworker of hers and they go home together... okay PLEASE review!


Here's my first story on this account. Before I was submitting stories to my sister's name, Pishvee. So, I think I'll leave the disclaimer up to my favorite FFVII character...

Yuffie: Which is ME!

Tai: I meant my favorite "villain" from FFVII...

Sephiroth: So I have the honors...

Tai: No! Argh... Reno get over here!

Reno: Why thank you. Ahem... Tai is aware that she doesn't own Final Fantasy VII, its logos, characters, blah de blah de blah, places, yeah you get it...zo to

Tai: And just so you know, in order to make it seem like my characters are speaking Japanese like they really do (not English), I used the term "anoh..." in place of "umm..." okay so there you go

Just about that time to go off shift for the evening, the heavens opened up. Those clouds had been threatening all day to drench the busy city of Midgar. Any stranger to the polluted city would have thought every day was overcast with rainy clouds, but those who spent their lives there could differentiate between the commonplace pollution clouds and their rain-mongering counterparts.

Many people commuted to the building of Shinra Company by walking. Seems they would be going home via taxi, or under the cover of a sturdy umbrella. Other employees had just begun their shift and would not be going home in such stormy weather, unless of course the torrent lasted through until tomorrow.

Elena, a young woman in her early twenties, had been let off work before the rain started. Now it was pelting her in such a way that it meant to dig her into the ground. She frantically locked her umbrella in to place and hurried in the direction of home. But the wind, as if from nowhere, received a power-up and began to pull her umbrella in the wrong direction. She held the curved handle as best she could while the wind attempted to take it away. The umbrella began to get all out of shape until the wind had actually managed to turn it inside-out. She yelled with fury and tossed the useless thing on the sidewalk.

It was then that a taxi cab drove up and stopped directly in front of her. _Good_, she thought, _I didn't call it but at least I can get a ride._ The driver never got out to beckon her forth. Instead, the passenger's side back door was thrown open twice (because the wind shut it the first time) and a hand was thrust outwards to her. She couldn't hear the hand's owner call, "Get in!" but she saw who it was and entered the cab, eager to be out of the cold, stinging windswept rain. She closed the door and the driver started the cab forwards.

"You were handling yourself pretty smoothly back there," smirked the hand's owner. It was one of her fellow co-workers, a young man named Reno. She scoffed and said, "Thanks for getting me out of that horrible rain."

"Don't mention it. You're soaked through."

"No duh."

"Well, you could come to my apartment, get some dry clothes, and we could take your clothes to the drying machine in the Laundromat." Elena was a little unnerved; the thought of going to Reno's apartment and _changing clothes_ was a little weird. She hadn't known him more than a few months, but already she knew a little about his reputation.

"You don't have to go to so much trouble," she refused politely, "Just take me to my apartment. We have a Laundromat there too."

"No, let me treat you. You looked like a fledgling out there."

"A fledgling?"

"Yeah. You haven't spent too much time in Midgar, have you?"

"I did go to school here. I've been here since I was like 16. Why, you think I can't deal with the weather and stuff here? It's just a storm. And I haven't exactly been here all that much; we've been chasing Avalanche all over the place all the time, so I can never be home," she argued hastily.

"Okay, okay! Sheesh… the way you were whirling your umbrella around, it was like you'd never heard of a storm in your life," he sneered.

"That was the wind, not me! Wait…you were watching me? How long were you watching me before you decided to get me out of the rain?" she demanded.

"Oh, about five minutes. Hahaha, don't give me that look! You're lucky I decided to even save you at all."

"Oh you're horrible." They both laughed a little, and then he calmly repeated, "Just let me treat you, okay? You aren't in any rush to get home or go somewhere, are you?"

She thought for a while and the interior of the cab was silent, contradicting the fierce blows and hits of rain on the exterior. She looked over at him, messy hair, thin face, untidy suit in all. He was not looking at her but whatever fascinating thing he saw outside the window. Despite his ragamuffin appearance, Reno could be quite charming sometimes and always one to make your sides split from laughter. She had nothing to do tonight, save for a small amount of paperwork which could easily be finished in half an hour. There were no plans. "Alright, you win. Are you just offering me shelter because you know me or because you would do this for anybody?"

He smiled slyly and said, "For you, yeah, because I know you. For anyone else, it depends."

"Depends on what?"

"Who they are, how much trouble they look like they're in… hey, we can't all go around playing generous now can we?"

"What about that guy? He looks like he's having trouble with his umbrella," she asked as the figure of a man in the distance came closer.

"Don't know him."

"And if you did?"

"Depends on how I know him. He could be a friend or an annoyance." _True,_ she thought. Anyway, the man was getting into a nearby building, so he wouldn't be in the rain too long and didn't need their cab to get him to his destination.

"Do you like hot chocolate?" The question seemed to come out of nowhere since she was still in reverie over the behaviors of human beings.

"Anoh…yeah. Why?"

"It's always cool to have hot chocolate in storms like this, and sit in silence to listen to the rain. Coffee just doesn't cut it, know what I mean? I can make some when we get there, if you want."

"You can be really surprising. I thought hot chocolate in rain was _my _thing. I didn't know someone like you thought like that."

"'Someone like me'? Thinking like _what_?" he asked curiously.

_Am I judging him too hard_? "Someone, oh I don't know, someone… like you! That's all I can say. Someone who…well, goes to parties to purposefully get drunk, shows up to work looking untidy, messes with other people through practical jokes…well, like that. I didn't know you could be so…philosophical. I'm sorry, I hope I haven't offended you." _At least that's the truth; that's what I think of you._

He laughed a tad and confirmed, "No, I'm fine." But they remained silent until they got to his apartment. Elena stood watching the rain while Reno fumbled with his keys, finally opening the door and announcing, "We're here!"

Elena stepped inside hesitantly, then had trouble suppressing a gasp of surprise when she saw the state of the room. There were papers overflowing the tables and leaking onto the floor, empty bottles in various places, old boxes of take-out dinners, and more stuff laying around the room as if a hurricane had blown through. She had just been getting used to the idea that Reno might be better than everyone made him out to be, based on their conversation in the cab. Seeing this garbage dump for a living room made her go back on her opinion.

"Make your self at home. I haven't been home enough to do much, I know. If you need to push any of this shit around, go right ahead. Anohh…wanna come find something to wear?"

She followed him through a short hallway to his room. The farther they got from the living room, the cleaner the place seemed to get. _Looks like he spends most of his life in the living room. How ironic._

He pulled out a light blue _chemise_ from the closet and black shorts and handed them to her. "These'll do, right?"

"Sure," she replied, suddenly struck by the thought that she had never seen any of her co-workers in normal clothes. Every time she saw them, they were adorned in the navy blue uniform of the Investigations Department, known by all as the "Turks", or they were formally dressed for some company meeting or banquet.

She took the clothes into a bathroom and locked the door, making sure three times that it was locked. They weren't too big on her, which reminded her of how thin he was. The sleeves of the _chemise aux manches longues_ were just really long, ending an inch past her fingertips, and the shirt itself covered half the length of the knee-length shorts. She looked at herself in the mirror behind the sink, wishing a hair dryer was available.

She looked at her soaked uniform left on the floor. That uniform…ever since she had first put it on, all kinds of strange adventures had been happening. There hadn't been a moment's rest; after all, she was promoted to Turk status for the sake of having enough members to go after Sephiroth and Avalanche. Reno had been injured the night he blew up Sector Seven's support structure in a fight with Avalanche. With him, second-in-command Turk, out, the Turks had needed to enlist another member. To her astonishment, she found herself in the occupation she had hated for years, and she wasn't finding it too bad.

She picked up the wet uniform (_at least my bra isn't wet. That would be so embarrassing to be in his presence, wearing his clothes, without one on…)_ and left her thoughts of the past and the bathroom.

The living room had changed its appearance while she was away. The papers had been stacked in unorthodox piles, the bottles were gone, the boxes of food were history. Either he was really quick (_well they do call him the 'fastest of the Turks'_), or she had been in the bathroom longer than she thought. _So he does have some pride in appearances._

She was still standing in awe (5 seconds had passed) when Reno entered from the front door. He saw her looking around at the room, then at him, and so merely shrugged. "Now you can find a place to sit down, eh? I was just out the trash taking… I mean taking the trash out!" he fumbled. She giggled and replied, "Yeah, now I don't have to wade through crap to get anywhere. Where's the Laundromat?"

"Oh yeah. Let me take care of that. You want a hair dryer, don't you?"

"Oh, you do have one? Could I use it?"

"Don't see why not. It's in the drawer in the sink. Here, I'll take these." She relinquished her uniform to him and headed back to the bathroom to dry her wet blonde hair. As she was leaving, she thought she saw him fingering through her clothes to find out all that was in the pile out of the corner of her eye, but he could've just been bundling them up more to get a better grip.

By time he got back, she had managed to dry her hair and find a small picture album in the living room. She knew she wouldn't want someone else going through _her_ stuff, but right now she was strangely curious. She was looking at a picture of a large group of Turk-uniformed personages when a voice behind her whispered, "That's your sister."

She jumped and turned around. There was Reno, but how did he get in so silently? "What are you doing here?" she asked guardedly.

"I live here. Don't worry, once you've been with the Turks as long as I have, you can do it too."

"I didn't even hear the front door!"

"Yeah, aren't I a master? Rookies like you could never do it, but just keep practicing and you will. Anyway, that's your sister, isn't it?" he repeated, pointing to a young woman in front with blonde hair.

"Yeah…I can't believe I hated her so much back then."

"She do something to you?"

"She…I don't really want to talk about it. We just had a falling out."

"Okay," he said nonchalantly, as if he was no longer interested. She was a little surprised; most people would press further, saying "oh come on, tell me!" and such. _Is he really respecting my wishes, or is he just not interested? Whatever._ Suddenly, she remembered what she had done.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be going through your stuff. I just saw this and—"

"Yeah it's okay. Sheesh, you must be from some real high class society if you have to ask for everything and act like all that you do is wrong. I told you, make yourself at home. If there was something I didn't want people seeing, do you think I would have it out in the open?"

"Okay."

"So, how about hot chocolate before we lose this storm?"

"Sure." She followed him into the kitchen and watched him grab two little packets of that mix stuff out of a cabinet and two mugs from another. He reached for the fridge, but checked himself and looked over at her. "Do you want it with water or milk?"

"Milk would be great. Water makes it too runny."

"Yeah, and Midgar water ain't too good. If ya think about it, all you're getting is water with chocolate mix dissolved in it. Now that doesn't sound appetizing, does it?"

"That's what I think about every time I have to have it with water."

"Are you so prim and proper that you only drink a certain type of milk or is what I have good enough?" He held up a gallon of skim milk.

She shook her head with a coy smile and said, "Why do you think I'm like some fancy person? That milk is fine. Just because I'm trying to be polite and help straighten you up doesn't mean I'm what you make me out to be."

"'Straighten me out'? What the hell is this crap? Look at me, I can straighten myself out." So he stood up straight with shoulders back and resembled a soldier at parade rest. Elena sighed and Reno put their mugs in the microwave. "Don't tell me what to do, Rookie."

"Stop calling me that. I've been a Turk for like five months now."

"Well, I've been getting on in the Turks fine for half your age. I don't need your schooling now," he laughed.

"You have not been with the Turks that long."

"Oh, I haven't? How old are you? I believe you've told me you are 21."

"No _baka_, I'm 23."

"Then in that case, not exactly half your age. More like a third."

"Okay, Mr. Senior Officer. Let's see if eight years' experience can help you get two hot mugs out of a microwave."

"Huh?"

"The hot chocolate is done. Hear that beeping sound? That's the sound a microwave makes when it's finished cooking."

"Don't be dense, Elena, you gotta let it cool first."

"I like it piping hot. Get them out."

"Okay fine, burn your tongue. Want marshmallows?"

"You have marshmallows?"

"If I didn't have them, would I offer them to you? Just answer the question."

"You're rude. Are they the little ones or big ones?"

"Little. The big ones don't fit in the cups very well."

"Sure, marshmallows would be fine."

She remembered a funny picture she had seen in the album and asked, "Where were you in the picture with the funny costumes? You know, those bird costumes with all the feathers and masks?"

Reno looked up at the ceiling in thought, then said, "Oh _that_ picture! Oh yeah…that was in Cosmo Canyon. Go get the album, I'll get these out."

When she returned with the album, she found him sitting where she had previously been, pointing to the other chair next to him. "I was there first!" she pouted.

"I always sit here. For some reason I never sit in that seat, so this is my chair and you'll just have to sit there," he reasoned.

She set the album down and took the offered chair. She took a sip of the hot chocolate, then opened the album to where that picture had been. He pointed to the taller bird figure and said, "That's my dad. This other one is just some other guy. That little one back there, that's me."

"You took a vacation to Cosmo Canyon when you were young?"

"When I was young? Aren't I still? No, I lived there."

"Wow. That must have been cool."

As if to avoid talking about it, he pointed to another picture and said, "Bet you won't guess who that is." The picture showed many people laughing and doing various things. She could tell they were all drunk. The figure he was pointing to was standing on top of a table with his arms above his head as if to catch a football pass. His eyes were closed and his mouth wide open in laughter.

"Guess who it is! Go on!" encouraged Reno. Elena expected to see _him_ somewhere in the picture, but the redhead was nowhere to be found. She looked harder at the guy on the tabletop but could not guess. Besides, the picture was slightly blurry.

"It's too hard to tell, the picture's too blurry," she made up, not entirely untruthful.

"That's my fault. That guy on the table is our chief from about seven years ago."

"That's _Tseng_! I never knew he would…"

"Yeah, back then he was _looser._ I can remember that night. I was so happy with his singing that I decided to get his autograph and his picture."

"His singing?"

"That's why he's on the tabletop. Don't ask me why I brought a camera to the party, but I'm sure glad I did. This picture would be worth millions today! Heh."

"Anohhh…yeah. So, you like looking at old pictures?"

"Not really, but it can be fun if you do it with the right person."

They looked at the dated pictures nigh on an hour, then went down to the Laundromat to pick up her uniform. "I'm so glad these suits can be washed and not dry-cleaned. That would add up to a lot of money," remarked Elena. Reno nodded and said, "Our salaries could barely cover it even if we dry-cleaned them once a month."

Elena looked at him skeptically. "It's not _that_ bad!"

Reno smiled knowingly. "Elena, don't you know? We're the most underpaid employees in Shinra."

"We are not! Anyone below floor sixty is worse off than us, so stop it."

"Ah, come on. You know it's true."

She pushed him and replied, "Maybe _you're_ underpaid. I'm fine. You're underpaid because of your annoying hair and laziness."

"Ohoho, look who's talking! You can hardly keep your mouth shut in front of Avalanche; you give away all the secrets before you know what you've done." He received a sharp hit upside the head from a very flustered Elena. "What the hell was that for?"

She glared at him and merely answered, "I'm trying my best."

"Apparently, your 'best' is yet to come, if you're ever gonna be a real Turk." They didn't speak for a while. Elena comforted herself with the warm touch of her suit. Reno began to head for the door, so she followed him. The Laundromat opened up to a covered outdoor hallway on the bottom floor, so Elena could see that the heavy rain had been replaced with sprinkles of falling water. _I guess I'll leave now._

As they were standing outside the door to his apartment again, she turned to him to tell him her decision, but simultaneously he turned to her and opened his mouth to speak. "Do you want to go have dinner somewhere?"

She was taken aback. _Is he asking me out?_ She forgot momentarily that she was decided to go home. She wasn't sure to say 'yes' or 'no' yet, so she asked, "What time is it?" He glanced at the watch on his right hand and answered, "18:14." They looked at each other silently. Elena looked hesitant, but one could not tell whether Reno was eager with anticipation or not, due to his characteristic nonchalant look. Finally Elena agreed to dinner. They went inside the apartment where a cellular phone was impatiently ringing.

Reno strode over to the phone, picked it up, and said, "Hey Chief." Elena watched him nod his head multiple times and give one-word answers to the phone. When he hung up, he turned disdainfully towards her. "The Chief wants me to go to headquarters for something that can't wait. What a drag…" Elena nodded understandably.

He looked more somberly at her. "Sorry."

"Ah, uh… it's okay. This was… nice. Thank you," she fumbled. He smiled and offered, "Want a ride home?"

"No, thank you. You just head to headquarters; I'll walk. I am pretty sure I know my way from here."

"Okay, then I guess I'll be seeing you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? What do you mean?"

"At work, yeah?"

"Oh haha, right. Oh! Your clothes, let me give them back. My uniform is dry; I'll just wear it home and give you your clothes now."

"Anohhh…okay…Don't wanna keep them?" he joked.

"Don't be ridiculous."

Soon she was out the door in her navy-blue suit and was already waiting outside to lock the door. They walked down to the street together and stood at a lamppost eyeing each other. Reno spoke first.

"Don't worry, you'll get better, at being a Turk I mean. Just quit giving away free information and the world'll turn brighter."

"You…Well, you make a better person than a Turk to be around."

"Oh?"

"Well, see ya."

"Catch ya later."

And they went their separate ways.


End file.
